AND CONSEETATOET. 131 



CHAPTEE YIII. 



THE PELAEGONIUM OE GEEANIUM. 



In making choice of a name for any of our friends that 

 we have been accustomed to speak of as geraniums take care 

 to look about you. If there are any botanists within hearing, 

 say " pelargonium," and take all the consequences. But if 

 none of those exacting and fastidious gentry are in the field, 

 speak of the plants as "geraniums," and you will have the 

 good fortune to be understood by the entire audience without 

 a single exception. Botanists apply the term pelargonium 

 to that section of the great family of cranes'-bills which 

 have irregular or unsymmetrical corollas ; those that have 

 regular corollas being by them called geraniums. Thus, all 

 our exhibition and bedding plants that are commonly known 

 as geraniums, are classed by botanists as Felartjoniums because 

 the top petals are larger than the others, and the flowers are, 

 therefore, irregular or unsymmetrical. 



The pelargoniums may be divided into two great sections. 

 The first of these have leaves wrinkled and notched, and large 

 flowers which are sometimes brilliantly self-coloured and in 

 other cases are blotched or striped, or delicately edged with 

 colour. These used to be called " pelargoniums" by the florist, 

 and the term was a convenient one to distinguish them from 

 those of the second section. These have leaves less wrinkled 

 than those of the first section, and a considerable number have 

 leaves that are nearly smooth and more or less round and flat, 

 and a very large proportion have the leaves marked with a 

 black or brown or red " zone." These are the " horseshoe 

 geraniums" of days gone by, the " zonals" of modern garden 

 phraseology, and the "geraniums" of all mankind save and 

 except the botanists. Each of these sections may be again 

 subdivided. In the flrst we shall find " show," '* fancy," 

 "spotted," and "forcing" felargoniums. In the second we 

 shall find "scarlet," " nosegay," " tricolor," and " variegated" 

 geraniums. It is fortunate for the writer that the reader will 



